Thursday, May 25, 2017

As a nonformal
educator, Julia Soto uses her spare time to educate her community about the
environment around them. Soto is a volunteer/docent with the Central Carolinas
Master Naturalist Program who recently earned her N.C. Environmental Education
Certificate. As her day job, she is a childcare subsidy caseworker.

Soto’s favorite part of the program was that it allowed
her to travel. “I loved traveling to all of the beautiful places around the
state where the workshops were held and the sheer joy of discovery as I moved
through the program,” said Soto. “It brought back all the excitement I used to
experience when I was a child playing in the woods.”

For her community partnership project, Soto helped her
daughter’s Girl Scout troop plan an Earth Day Celebration at a local park as
part of their Bronze Award Project. In celebration of Girl Scouts’ 100th
Anniversary, girls from all over the county came together to plant 100 pine
trees at the park. Soto found it very rewarding to see how excited the girls
were about the tree planting.

Looking back at the program, the moment that stands out
to Soto was an event she may never have experienced otherwise. “I attended the
sea turtle workshop on the coast,” reflected Soto. “The park ranger was
checking one of the nests and found a hatchling straggling behind. The
experience of watching that lone little hatchling make its way to the sea was
something I’ll always remember.”

Thursday, May 18, 2017

A recycling education specialist with the City of
Greensboro’s Field Operations, Tori Carle is positive that obtaining her N.C.
Environmental Education Certification has helped her career advancement. Not
only did it help her find a job, but it also has improved her confidence in
planning and executing programs at that job, where she works with schools,
businesses and residents to increase recycling participation and decrease
contamination.

Carle’s favorite part of the N.C. Environmental Education
Certification Program was the opportunity it provided to network with other
environmental educators at the various workshops. “I’m also a super nerd, so I
love learning and teaching new things that I have learned to others is always
fun,” added Carle.

For her community partnership project, Carle created
Operation Bed Roll, a program that has helped spread the word about the
non-recyclability of plastic film in residential recycling containers. Operation
Bed Roll is a collaboration between Greensboro’s Field Operations and Police
departments to keep non-recyclable materials out of our landfills – and help
some of our neediest residents have a safe place to sleep. Operation Bed Roll
aims to transform thousands of plastic grocery bags into “plarn,” or plastic
bag yarn used to create crocheted sleeping mats that provide an insulated
barrier for those who sleep on the ground. Carle trains residents how to make
the plarn and Greensboro police officers will distribute the mats to the
homeless throughout the winter. The Interactive Resource Center, a non-profit
that helps people experiencing homelessness, helped us set a goal of 200 bed
rolls per winter.

“Greensboro residents have shown up to share love with
our neediest residents by crafting plastic bag yarn into more than 243 bed
rolls and counting,” said Carle. “That’s about 170,100 plastic bags kept out of
city streets, landfills and recycling! Residents have also learned where to
properly recycle plastic bags – at retail store collection bins. The plan fever
has spread so much that other communities have started their own Operation Bed
Roll.”

What stands out most to Carle from completing the program
is how helpful it is for anyone working in an environmental education position.
“Getting educators free resources for our programs has been a huge help in
every environmental education job I’ve had,” Carle reflected.

Monday, May 8, 2017

Jessica Metz-Bugg is
a fourth-generation teacher with a specific interest in multicultural education
who recently completed the N.C. Environmental Education Certification Program. Metz-Bugg
started her teaching career in the Cherokee Central School System, where most
students are members of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians. She initially
taught fourth and fifth grade, then added to her certification and started
teaching sixth grade science.

Metz-Bugg already has great
experience with environmental education. In 2013, she started an after-school
garden club for sixth and seventh grade students, which partners with community
organizations and tribal members to create traditional food and pollinator
gardens. In 2014, she became the Education Project Coordinator for Seeking
Paths in Nature, an educational partnership between Great Smoky Mountains
National park and Cherokee Middle School. In this role, she created a middle
school curriculum which integrated Cherokee culture and National Park
resources. She planned and led field trips to multiple National Park service
sites across the Southeast, presented in-class and in-park programs for K-12
students, provided professional development for park rangers and educators, and
presented information about the project at conferences across the country to
help build interest and sustainability for the program. She has since switched back
to a formal educator role and is teaching 4-6 grade science and math at New
Kituwah Academy, a Cherokee language immersion school, where she enjoys
learning about and integrating Native American culture into her lessons to
empower her students as she helps them to explore, understand and connect to
the world around them.

Metz-Bugg says her favorite part of earning her
certification was the networking and brainstorming opportunities that arose
from the program. “I have met and developed close working relationships with
some truly amazing people in the field of environmental education,” said
Metz-Bugg. “The ideas and collaborations that have come from meeting people
during this process have been invaluable and will continue to influence me
personally and professionally for years to come. There have been so many
favorite parts, but truly the people are what have made the greatest and most
lasting impact.”

For her community partnership project, Metz-Bugg created
educational garden space on the campus of Cherokee Central Schools. Starting
with just two beds, a few kids and a handful of donated seeds the project has
grown to twenty-two beds managed by school staff, students, and community
volunteers. The space includes a pollinator garden and traditional Cherokee
plants for various uses and vegetables. This garden is unique in that it
focuses on plants related to Cherokee culture. Through the garden, students of
Cherokee Central Schools learn cultural information about foods, traditions,
folklore, and crafts related to plants. However, she is also integrating that
traditional knowledge with modern information on plant science, non-native
foods and nutrition. Part of being an educator for Native American students in
the 21st century is teaching the traditional knowledge, but also teaching the
science that supports it and help students connect in ways that fit into the
student’s life and identity. This garden is always working on helping students
understand this larger idea.

Reflecting on the program, the experience that stands out
most for Metz-Bugg is her trip with the N.C. Museum of Natural Sciences to the
Land of the Long Leaf Pine. “Experiencing an ecosystem so drastically different
from anything I knew and learning both the history and science side-by-side made
the information so meaningful and engaging,” she said. “Seeing carnivorous
plants in the wild for the first time was one of the coolest things ever! I had
also never been to the ocean in the winter and it was a deeply calming and
restorative experience. This trip really had it all.”

About the Office

The N.C. Office of Environmental Education and Public Affairs provides an environmental education clearinghouse, or central source, for all of the environmental education resources in the state. The office manages the N.C. Environmental Education Certification Program and serves as a liaison to the N.C. Department of Public Instruction. The office serves PreK-12 schools, colleges and universities, government agencies, non-profit organizations, environmental education centers, citizen groups, business and industry, libraries and the general public. The office is part of the N.C. Department of Environmental Quality in Raleigh.

The Office of Environmental Education and Public Affairs, N.C. Department of Environmental Quality. Posts & comments to and from this blog are subject to the NC Public Records Law and may be disclosed to third parties. Comments welcome. The office reserves the right to remove off topic, offensive or inappropriate comments.